Yes Alexa, we'll be seeing a lot more talking TVs this year

There is a lot you can do with Alexa. Here's how you can add skills.
Josmar Taveras

We spent some time at our local Best Buy store this week, checking out TVs, looking for models that talk.

But there weren't that many, not yet. But just wait a few months. You'll be seeing them all over the showroom floor.

This week, Amazon was in the news for announcing a new slate of smart, Internet-connected TVs, coming later this year, that will have the Alexa personal assistant built in. As in, "Alexa, open Netflix," or "Alexa, play Stranger Things."

This follows recent announcements of new talking TVs later this year from Samsung (via the Bixby personal assistant), LG (Alexa and the Google assistant) Sony (Google) TCL (voice-activated Roku), Vizio (Google for searches, Alexa to turn on and off the TVs)) Hisense (Alexa) and Vizio (Google) that promise to make us the remote control.

Whether we'll actually use the services or not is debatable. But this much is clear — despite the hype, beyond Amazon, the trend is going to take some time to get to your living room.

Yes, there have been many announcements, but most, with the exception of the e-tailer, are on the high end, for sets selling for $1,000 and up. Most high-volume sets, those selling for $500 or less (you know, the ones we actually buy), are generally smart, as in they connect to the Internet. But they still require you to navigate your way around the old-fashioned way, via your fingers on a remote control.

The Amazon TVs could be the breakthrough for more consumers turning to Alexa to turn on the TV, change the channel, find the latest George Clooney movie, open Netflix and adjust the volume. (And eventually to start buying stuff off the TV!)

Best Buy will exclusively sell Amazon Fire-edition smart TVs from Toshiba beginning this summer. The TVs will have Amazon Fire TV built in and come with a voice-activated remote with Alexa, Amazon’s voice-enabled assistant, and can be paired with any Echo device.(Photo: Amazon)

The new Fire TV sets, introduced at a press conference at Amazon headquarters near Seattle, are expected to be bargain-priced, selling in the $400 range. They will be branded as both Insignia, a lower-priced Best Buy house brand, and Toshiba, now owned by Chinese value brand Hisense.

For $40 to $80, any consumer can easily bring Alexa to their TV now by buying the accessory Fire TV streaming player. It connects to the TV and brings in online entertainment from the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and other channels.

Adam Sohmer, who owns a New York-based communications firm, has been using voice search via the Fire TV streaming box. He says that after years of punching at the remote, using his voice became "addictive. It's much easier to search and find things."

He likes to begin his day watching clips of the late-night comedians, which are showcased on YouTube. Due to a corporate spat between Amazon and YouTube owner Google, YouTube isn't available as one of the apps on FireTV, but then, thanks to a workaround, it actually is.

He asks Alexa to find him "Stephen Colbert," clips, and it responds with a handful. He is then directed to open the Firefox browser on his Fire TV, which leads to anything online, and that brings him to the Colbert clips on YouTube.

The new sets from Amazon are expected in stores by summer, as are new voice-activated sets from Vizio (starting at $999), while the $699 55-inch TCL P6 series, with built in voice search from Roku, will be available in May.

In other tech news this week

More from Amazon: There are 100 million members of the Prime service, which offers expedited shipping and online entertainment, worth some $10 billion yearly. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced this in a shareholder letter, the first time Amazon has disclosed the subscriber number.

Flickr, the nearly dormant photo site oncebeloved by millions, has been acquired by premium photo-sharing website SmugMug, which vows to revive the service. Flickr is one of the earliest photo sharing websites, but as part of the Yahoo empire, it's been neglected for many years, and the once thriving photo community has moved on. The question now is whether SmugMug can bring folks back. My guess is this is going to be as tough as getting people to use AOL and Yahoo again or bring back MySpace. Good luck SmugMug! (We were on Flickr back in the day, because photos looked better and bigger than elsewhere at the time, but it's been years since we've posted there. Meanwhile, we're such longtime fans of SmugMug that it hosts our website--including the link to the bottom photo.)

Yes, we really are using Apple's new "Do Not Disturb" feature. Apple introduced a way to manually turn off notifications while driving in the iOS 11 mobile operating system update in September, in a bid to help curb distracted driving. A new study says it has been effective. Some 80% of iPhone drivers used the feature between Sept. 19 and Oct. 25, 2017, auto insurer EverQuote says. Phone use among drivers with the feature turned on decreased by 8%.

Facebook rolls out stronger privacy controls — but only in Europe. The social network, which has been under fire for a data security breach, is set to bring more privacy safeguards to users to comply with new regulations set to launch in May. Basically, consumers will be asked more often to approve such Facebook features as facial recognition and some types of targeted advertising.

YouTube CEO responds to creator community. Susan Wojcicki acknowledged that the "last year has not been easy" for video creators in a blog post this week. It was the first she has spoken directly since the aftermath of a shooting two weeks ago at the YouTube campus in San Bruno, Calif. The attack shone an unwelcome spotlight on rising tensions between YouTube and its legion of amateur video creators, who have made the site a hit among younger viewers but have chafed under changes meant to crack down on violent, exploitive or extremist videos. After a creator opened fire at YouTube employees before taking her own life, police pointed to her apparent anger over reduced income from her videos on YouTube as a possible motivation. In her post, Wojcicki pointed out various ways YouTube was trying to have a closer connection with creators but did little to address the small channels that are now poorly performing as a result of new YouTube policies.

This week's Talking Tech podcasts

The disappearing Gmail. We've all sent emails we wished we could pull back. So how does the sound of a time-sensitive email that would disappear sound? Google reportedly has plans to introduce the feature soon.

Thanks for visiting with us again for our take on the week's tech news. Have you subscribed to the newsletter? Click this link to get it delivered to your inbox every Saturday. Be sure to check out the daily #TalkingTech podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to podcasts.